Ladders are commonly utilized in a variety of industries, such as painting and roofing, to provide access to an area at a considerable height. An extension ladder is one well-known type of ladder that includes a pair of parallel side rails interconnected by a plurality of transverse rungs. In use, a person disposes the bottom of the extension ladder on the ground and angles the top of the extension ladder against a support structure, such as a house. The person is then able to climb the ladder by sequentially stepping on the plurality of transverse rungs and thereby perform a particular task at a significant height above the ground.
When positioned on a ladder to perform a particular task, a person typically has limited accessibility to supplies, such as tools or materials. Rather, supplies are traditionally collected in a toolbox or other similar container which is kept on the ground. As such, a person is required to repeatedly climb up and down the ladder in order to access supplies from the toolbox that are needed to accomplish the particular task, which is both highly inefficient and labor intensive. Furthermore, repeatedly climbing up and down a ladder, especially while carrying multiple items, introduces an increased risk of falling, which can result in serious injury.
Accordingly, it is known in the art for workers to wear clothes and/or accessories (e.g., a toolbelt) that are designed to hold a limited number of small, frequently used instruments. However, it has been found that these types of tool retaining articles are somewhat uncomfortable to wear and significantly limit the number and size of tools that a worker can hold at any one time. These tool retaining articles may also cause the wearer to move into awkward positions to retrieve the tools, which can increase the risk of falling and experiencing serious injury.
Accordingly, it is known in the art for trays and other similar types of support structures to be detachably mounted onto a ladder at a user-selected height. A detachable ladder tray is typically constructed to mount on a side rail of an extension ladder and extend laterally outward therefrom so as not to interfere with the person when positioned on the ladder. The ladder tray is commonly constructed with a generally flat, shallow shelf that is provided with one or more openings through which tools can be hung. In this capacity, the worker can readily access items from the tray while positioned on the ladder.
In U.S. Pat. No. 8,469,148 to C. C. Perry, which is incorporated herein by reference, there is disclosed a tray for supporting tools, paint cans, painting supplies and the like that is pivotally held in a selected position by an elongated frame which is removably attached to a ladder rail. The ladder tray includes a folding shelf, a shelf support, a rail embracing frame, a hinge means connecting the shelf and support to the frame, and hooks for engaging the rungs of the ladder. A variety of apertures, depressions and/or raised areas exist on the tray in various sizes and shapes and are adapted for holding tools or for temporary placement of cans, bottles, jugs, tools and the like on the shelf. When mounted, the ladder tray extends out from one side of the ladder and does not prevent a user from climbing up or down the ladder. It may be folded down alongside the rail of the ladder to a space saving transport or storage position or may be folded and removed from the ladder to store.
Ladder trays of the type as described in the '148 patent have been found to suffer from a several notable drawbacks.
As a first drawback, ladder trays of the type as described in the '148 patent are incapable of being disposed on a flat surface while loaded with the various instruments due to its inverted L-shaped configuration. Rather, the tray is designed to be mounted onto a ladder at a user-selected height without any tools retained thereon. Subsequent thereto, the user would be required to climb up and down the ladder to retrieve the tools to be held by the tray, which is highly time-consuming and labor-intensive. This drawback also introduces additional hazards to the user, who may have to carry one or more items while simultaneously climbing up and down the ladder, often multiple times, thereby increasing the risk of falling and experiencing significant injury. It also requires that the various tools to be retained by the tray are removed therefrom between uses (e.g., when stored on a truck), thereby rendering the user less ready to perform a future task.
As a second drawback, ladder trays of the type described in the '148 patent are not designed to retain larger items, such as automated drills, nail guns and the like. As a result, routinely used items which are relatively large in size are only able to be disposed flat on the relatively small and shallow shelf in an unbalanced manner.
As a third drawback, ladder trays of the type as described in the '148 patent are not typically provided with a handle and, as such, are relatively difficult to carry when transporting up and down a ladder.
As a fourth drawback, ladder trays of the type as described in the '148 patent are typically designed for use with a particular size and shape of ladder. In particular, the portion of the ladder tray that directly engages the ladder is typically rigid and dimensionally fixed in construction and is therefore incapable of being adjusted to accommodate ladders of varying rail widths.
As a fifth drawback, ladder trays of the type as described in the '148 patent are often secured to ladders in a relatively unstable fashion. For instance, as noted above, the inability to adjust conventional ladder trays to fittingly mount on ladders of varying dimensions and different rail configurations often renders the ladder tray unstable and unreliable as a support structure. Additionally, conventional ladder trays that are designed to hook onto one or more ladder rungs often fail to restrict lateral and/or rotational movement of the tray. As can be appreciated, limited lateral and/or rotational movement of the tray relative to the ladder can cause equipment on the tray, or the tray itself, to fall, creating a potentially dangerous condition.